Various position sensor technologies are known from the prior art including resistive and capacitive touch-screens and inductive position sensors.
EP0259894 B1 shows an inductive position detecting apparatus having a plurality of loop coils for sending and receiving electromagnetic signals and a position pointer having a tuning circuit. The position detection is performed by electromagnetic coupling. Similar inductive position sensing devices are known from, e.g. EP0307667 B1; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,565,632; 5,576,502; 5,977,959; 6,801,192 B2; 6,485,306 B1; 5,600,105; 6,667,740 B2 and US Patent Application 2001 0050556 A1.
Various capacitive pen entry position sensors are known from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,488,204; 5,942,733 and 6,380,929.
Hand-held electronic appliances which include an entry pen for a user's entry of commands or data are known from the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 6,667,740 B2 shows a hand-held personal digital assistant which includes a digitizing system behind the PDA's liquid crystal display which can sense the position of a resonant stylus. Further, a mobile telephone is disclosed that has a liquid crystal display, and sensor windings and excitation windings of a digitizing system under the display. The digitizing system is operable to sense the position of the resonant stylus relative to the display. The digitizing system of the mobile telephone may be used to allow a user to create short text messages which can then be sent by the mobile telephone to another party. If the mobile telephone includes an organizer then the digitizer can be used to control the inputting, manipulation and outputting of data from the organizer.
The present invention aims to provide an improved position pointing device for use with a position detection apparatus, such as a coordinate input apparatus and a hand-held electronic appliance.